In the last decade there certainly has been a significant cycle of French horror films. Quite a lot of the most famous ones have focused on the more sadistic end of the genre, presenting torture, gore and general nastiness in new, often unusual, ways. Livid clearly indicates that Gallic horror comes in many shapes though, as this one relies considerably more on atmosphere rather than full-on violence. Its story has three young thieves breaking into a remote mansion one Halloween night; the only resident of this villa being a very elderly comatose former ballet teacher who they have heard has a 'hidden treasure' stashed away somewhere in the house. The trio, however, encounter far more than they could ever have bargained for and a night of uncanny horror ensues.
This film is typified quite a bit by being a hybrid of genres. It's not strictly a haunted house film, although it often feels like one, it has fairy tale aspects yet could never be exactly described as a pure fantasy and while it does rely largely on atmosphere it often has scenes of visceral violence. This undefinable aspect is amplified further by a storyline that wilfully never makes complete sense and has many aspects that hang in the air somewhat. Unlike a lot of other people seemingly, I can't say any of the above really bothered me at all. In fact I thought it added up to a distinctive bit of Gothic horror.
It's very nicely photographed throughout and the detailed, dusty interiors of the house are an interesting setting. There are many macabre things in here and some are quite strikingly different; the clockwork corpse being a good example of original thought from the film-makers. Pleasingly, it does get quite scary from time to time as well, with the evil old woman and her undead daughter being pretty sinister adversaries and interesting creations. As the story progresses flashbacks are used to explain events. But these generate as many questions as they do answers and by the end there is a definite enigmatic quality to much of what we have just seen. This ambiguity has been earned though; sometimes it's best for a dark fairy-tale to not reveal all its secrets.